Comparing Powerful Words

I am reading ‘God Stories’, a wonderful book by Andrew Wilson and last night enjoyed the chapter entitled “Concerning His Son”.

In this Andrew unpacks a passage of Scripture that in a “mere 40 Greek words” summarises the entire Gospel.1

He compares this “mere 40 words” of highly effective language to the Magna Carta’s 4000 words, the American Declaration of Independence at 1321 words and Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address at 267 words.

Let me add some more examples:

Pythagoras Theory – 24 words

The Lords Prayer – 66 words

Archimedes Principle – 67 words

The Ten Commandments – 179 words

Andrew’s final example is the EU directive on the sale of cabbages – yes that’s right ‘cabbages’ – which extends to an incredible 26,253 words!

I found this quite amusing in the context of Andrew’s writing last night but this extraordinary fact has played on my mind all day. How did we ever get into the position that we allow the ‘Eurocracy’ to conjure such useless and lengthy pieces of legislation for us to then implement and police? Furthermore, what does this persistent and systemic interference from the EU cost the British tax payer?

Richard Cobden campaigned for the repeal of the Corn Laws: best we set about EU veggie directives sooner rather than later!

Romans 1:1-4 translated from 40 Greek to 54 English words:

“The gospel of God which he promised beforehand through his prophets in the holy Scriptures, concerning his Son, who was descended from David according to the flesh and was declared to be the Son of God in power according to the Spirit of holiness by his resurrection from the dead, Jesus Christ our Lord.” [↩]